Hi. Buck Edwards here. I’m your NoC Music Editor. Normally, as longtime readers know, I fill this space with all sorts of clever writing about upcoming shows, but frankly, I don’t feel like doing that this issue. I’m pretty down on music, as it turns out. It’s only temporary—don’t worry!—but right now I’m just not in the mood.

What happened is that my favorite Scandinavian progressive/goth/melodic death metal band, Sweden’s Opeth, just released a new album, Heritage, that frankly isn’t very good. Not only is it not very good, it isn’t even metal. Like, at all. Instead, it’s seventies-style progressive rock, in the vein of King Crimson, or Camel. One song sounds just like Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.Continue reading »

The Spooky Qs formed in 2007 as a three-piece band. Four years later and with a real-live drummer (Chris Oaks), the Q’s have put out 2 records, Winterband and the more recent Rid of You, both of which are available as vinyl record or fee download (donations welcome) on the band’s website.NoC caught up with the band to ask them about their long-planned album of resistance music, rumored to be near the recording stages.

NoC: Have you released Rid of You yet?

Jack Cofer: We have! For free digital download on the web site. Also, we have the vinyl ready, but not their sleeves. Still seeking someone to assist in the printing of those.

NoC: Where are you all in your album of resistance music? When are you hoping to have it completed?

JC: Truthfully, we had hoped to have this completed by….a while ago, but as good prefects go, this one grew and grew and now we are in the stage of rehearsing them for recording.Continue reading »

The queer community in Kentucky is blossoming with talent and promise, and they’re happily willing to share. Queerslang is a music, film, and learning festival geared towards Lexington’s Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Ally community. Conceived, planned, and created by UK radio station WRFL’s grant director, Jack Cofer, upon hearing of the LGBT part of South X Southwest, Gay X Gay Gay.

As a satellite event to the Boomslang music festival, Queerslang will be an all-day extravaganza on Saturday, September 24. The event will feature a choice of four different workshops, and two independent documentary film screenings. Attendance at just one hour-long workshop will slash your ticket to the dance after-party at Cosmic Charlie’s from $15 to $8. (A Boomslang weekend or Saturday day-pass wristband will get you in for no charge.)Continue reading »

Boomslang weekend and day passes will are available in advance at www.boomslangfest.com, and tickets to individual shows can be purchased at the door as venue capacity allows. All shows are 18+ unless noted otherwise.

Boomslang’s weekend of music kicks off with a triple bill of energetic, fun-spirited rock-n-roll that should appeal to mosh-loving hipsters and public radio junkies alike. Starting with local psych-groovesters Onward Pilgrim and headlined by Tennessee garage-punk honky tonk darlings Those Darlins, whom you may have caught playing a set on NPR’s World Cafe last month, the bill will be rounded out by a rare solo set from Wax Fang founder/vocalist/guitarist/Theremin player Scott Carney. This set will rouse your senses and get your blood flowing early, and end by 11 p.m. to make way for the late dance party of the century – don’t sleep on it!Continue reading »

Music calendars, such as the one published regularly in these pages, are organized around strong blurbs—quick snapshot statements about artists you’ve not yet heard about. If you’re looking for one about Morgan O’Kane, it’s this, from Woodsong’s Michael Jonathan the last time O’Kane tore through Lexington with his banjo, kickbox suitcase, and cast of cellists, dobro and fiddle players: “If Uncle Dave Macon married Bruce Springsteen their love child would be Morgan O’Kane.”

Too much home cooking? Fair enough. Here’s another comparison blurb, this one coming from San Jose, California: “If Jimi Hendrix played the banjo, he might resemble O’Kane.”Continue reading »

When bassists discuss their favorite players, the usual names are brought up: Victor Wooten, Jaco, James Jamerson, Stanley Clarke, William Murderface…every bass player keeps a list. But one name turns up on just about every list: when the conversation comes around to Rocco Prestia, players in the know just smile and shake their heads, ’cause there’s nothing left to say. Prestia is a mutha.Continue reading »

Ben Lacy’s guitar prowess is such that many who hear him play experience an extreme emotional response as a result, such as intense crying jags, fits of cackling laughter, alternating terror and ecstasy—that sort of thing. Attending his performances thus feels a bit like staring into the face of God; you’re overcome with awe, your senses explode and then dim forever, and you end up drooling in a ditch, unresponsive to stimuli.

And that’s why Ben Lacy needs a new name. I mean, “Ben Lacy” is a perfectly pleasant moniker: “Ben” is a welcoming word, similar to the French “bien” and “bon,” and evocative of the Sanskrit root “bhanu,” the Sun, while “Lacy” is a seductive, Latinate thing. When you hear them together you think, oh, he’s a really nice guy, I bet, and you probably smile and think about your loved ones, and of hugging them. Mm.Continue reading »

We aesthetes in the NoC Music Department get a number of emails from acts local and regional, advertising upcoming gigs at area venues. And we do our best to help the cause by mentioning them in the calendar and perhaps running a picture. Never, however, do we simply reproduce in print the contents of the emails we receive.

The 2011 edition of Holler in the Holler, a three-day music and arts festival, will be held between Friday, August 19 and Sunday, August 21 at Homegrown Hideaways, just outside of Berea, KY. Tickets, which start at $12, are available in a variety of packages, including per-day and all-weekend passes.

Acts booked for this year’s edition of the festival include BlueGrass Collective, The Barry Mando Project, Born Cross Eyed, Blind Corn Liquor Pickers, Holler Poets, and many other local and regional musicians.

Tickets may be purchased at the Homegrown Hideaways web site, at homegrownhideaways.org; click the event’s menu link for prices, directions, and the full schedule of events. Advance ticket sales end August 17, after which patrons must buy them at the festival entrance.

So I went to the Steely Dan show up in Cincinnati this past week, and on the drive up 75 I was almost frantic with excitement about it, because while I fell in love with the music years ago I’d never managed to catch them live, until now.

I’d taken along Ron, my pal who listens exclusively to prog, metal, and prog-metal, and who hadn’t yet awakened to the Dan’s genius: the jazz chords; the virtuosic soloing; the jaded, biting lyrics; the pristine, precise sound production. Maybe, I thought, seeing the band live would flip the switch, so to speak, and he’d come to love the band too. We all evangelize for our favorites, don’t we?Continue reading »